Aberdeen is one of the most costly places in the UK to die, a study has claimed, with an average funeral in the Granite City being £4,942 ranking tenth in the UK.

The next priciest Scottish cities, according to the report from funeral comparison website Beyond.life, are Perth, which is 25th most expensive in the UK at £4,586, Inverness which is 32nd at an average cost of £4,495 and Motherwell, where a typical funeral costs £4,245, ranking it 53rd.

The average UK funeral – calculated as the average cost of a funeral director’s services, plus the average price of cremations and burials – is now £4,241.

This represents a rise of a third in only two years - in 2016, the average was £3,190.

UK-wide, Watford is the most expensive place to have a funeral, at an average cost of £5,814 - nudging London into second place at £5,749, with Redhill in third at £5,352.

James Dunn, co-founder of Beyond, said: “It looks like a football league but this is one table you don’t want to be topping.

A lack of transparency in the funeral market is what’s fuelling price rises, particularly among the big chains.”

He added: “Death means big business, with half a million Brits dying every year, but a disinclination to shop around is resulting in mourners, who are often vulnerable, paying over the odds.” Last week, the Scottish Government called for more people to submit their views to its funeral expense assistance consultation which will create new regulations north of the Border to provide a one off payment to support people on low income benefits who need to pay for a funeral.

A separate report also published last week found that 80 per cent of people would like to see the funeral director industry regulated. There are currently no common standards for facilities or regulation in the industry